The milestone marked the first U.S.-based crewed trip to the final frontier since NASA grounded its space shuttle fleet in July 2011. And it was the first spaceflight ever by a private vehicle designed to carry commercial passengers. (By one measure, anyway: Though many people place the boundary of outer space 62 miles, or 100 km, up at the "Karman Line," the U.S. Air Force awards astronaut wings to personnel who reach an altitude of 50 miles, or 80 km.) [In Photos: Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo Unity Soars to Space]

"Today, we have shown that Virgin Galactic really can open space to change the world for good," Virgin Galactic founder Sir Richard Branson said in a postflight statement yesterday.

Virgin Galactic's VSS Unity spaceliner captured this view of Earth against the blackness of space during its fourth rocket-powered test flight, which took place on Dec. 13, 2018.
Credit: Virgin Galactic
"We will now push on with the remaining portion of our flight test program, which will see the rocket motor burn for longer and VSS Unity fly still faster and higher towards giving thousands of private astronauts an experience which provides a new, planetary perspective to our relationship with the Earth and the cosmos," he added. "This is a momentous day, and I could not be more proud of our teams who together have opened a new chapter of space exploration."

VSS Unity is designed to carry six passengers, two pilots and scientific experiments on brief trips to suborbital space. Virgin Galactic is selling seats on the vehicle for $250,000 apiece.

Yesterday's flight carried no passengers, just pilot Mark Stucky and co-pilot Frederick "C.J." Sturckow. But, given the mission's success, the first commercial flights of VSS Unity may be coming quite soon. And don't be surprised if another company officially gets into the space-tourism business at about the same time as Virgin.

Blue Origin, the spaceflight company run by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, is developing its own reusable suborbital system called New Shepard, which has already aced multiple uncrewed test flights. Blue Origin plans to start selling tickets to ride New Shepard next year, company representatives have said (though they have yet to disclose the price).

Virgin Galactic's VSS Unity zooms toward space during a rocket-powered test flight on Dec. 13, 2018.
Credit: Virgin Galactic/www.MarsScientific.com & Trumbull Studios
And then there's orbital spaceflight. Two other American companies, SpaceX and Boeing, hold multibillion-dollar NASA contracts to fly astronauts to and from the International Space Station (ISS). SpaceX will use its Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon capsule, while Boeing will do the job with its CST-100 Starliner capsule and United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rockets. [Crew Dragon and Starliner: A Look at the Upcoming Astronaut Taxis]

SpaceX and NASA have pushed the first test flight of the Crew Dragon capsule back by 10 days, partly to avoid a traffic jam at the International Space Station (ISS).

The maiden orbital mission of SpaceX's astronaut taxi — an uncrewed flight to the ISS known as Demo-1 — is now scheduled to launch on Jan. 17, NASA officials announced on Friday (Dec. 7). That's four days after one of Crew Dragon's robotic, cargo-carrying cousins departs the orbiting lab.

NASA's InSight Mars lander, as seen by the HiRISE camera aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona
NASA's newly arrived Mars lander has been spotted by one its orbiting cousins.

The space agency's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter used its supersharp High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera (HiRISE) to photograph the InSight lander, as well as the hardware that helped the stationary robot ace its Nov. 26 touchdown on the equatorial plain known as Elysium Planitia.

VeteranRegular

Space Warp Dynamics
---Update: December 14, 2018---
In the last 3 weeks we have been testing model 16 and comparing against model 15. Model 16a-1 baseline is comparable to that of model 15 now. We are working on testing a series of offsets to the horizontal arrays to get significant improvement. The reason for all this investigation is again to reduce input power and get maximum work output. We will be testing through the end of the year.

The future goals remain the same, to lift the engine off the ground. We will update you all when we made a breakthrough. In addition to the equations we already have, we have also been working on some engineering design equations. These equations will show the predictive warping of space as per the watts input into the engine.

Dave will also be doing a radio show with David Schrader “Midnight in the Desert” December 27th, 2018 from 9:00pst (11:00cst) for 3 hours. They will be discussing the Warp Drive and the future of space travel.

Just to let you know we read through the comments, but we get too many to respond to everyone. Hopefully this answers some of the questions people have.

"The future goals remain the same, to lift the engine off the ground". They look serious: have been there for a while, their background seems solid and they even published a paper in a scientific publication. But that stuff about lifting the engine off the ground seems surreal. I've been following them for a while and I don't know where that comes from or maybe it's me that I'm understanding a different thing...

I'll try to find something about it.

EDIT: and I found this in one of their documents from their website:
"Our goal of lifting a small craft off the ground is still within our limited resources. Larger and more powerful VEM Drive engines are being designed and developed for the completion of the autonomous Bluebird II UAV. The full-size Bluebird II will be a seven-passenger craft. As warp technology evolves, the goal is to go faster than light utilizing a space warp environment. At that point imagine the possibilities. Will space, then, be the final frontier?"

VeteranRegular

Scientists Proposed a Nuclear 'Tunnelbot' to Hunt Life in Europa's Hidden Ocean
By Rafi Letzter, Live Science Staff Writer | December 17, 2018 02:26pm ET
Artist’s rendering of the Europa "tunnelbot."
Credit: Alexander Pawlusik, LERCIP Internship Program NASA Glenn Research Center
A group of scientists wants to send a nuclear-powered "tunnelbot" to Europa to blaze a path through the Jovian moon's thick shell of ice and search for life.

Europa, the fourth largest of Jupiter's 53 moons, is one of the best candidates in our solar system for hosting alien life. Researchers believe that its icy crust hides a liquid water ocean and that vents through that crust might deliver the necessary heat and chemical ingredients for life into that ocean.To peek beneath that thick veil of ice, researchers on the NASA Glenn Research COMPASS team (a group of scientists and engineers scattered around the country and tasked with solving problems for NASA) think they have come up with the tunnelbot.

Could Life on Mars Be Lurking Deep Underground?
By Mindy Weisberger, Live Science Senior Writer | December 18, 2018 07:27am ET
Artist's illustration of NASA's InSight lander on the surface of Mars. InSight touched down on Nov. 26, 2018, to study Mars' internal structure and composition.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
WASHINGTON — To find life on Mars, scientists may need to give up surface exploration and "go deep."

Typically, Mars missions searching for signs of life target the planet's surface, at sites where there are signs of ancient water (a reliable indicator of where life is found on Earth). But while no life has turned up yet on Mars' surface, there may be an abundance of microbial Martians congregating underground, according to research presented Dec. 11 here at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU).

VeteranRegular

VeteranRegular

There Are Plants and Animals on the Moon Now (Because of China)
By Rafi Letzter, Live Science Staff Writer | January 4, 2019 05:49pm ET
Is the moon really "a harsh mistress?" (Composite image)
Credit: World Perspectives/Getty Images
China's Chang'e-4 lander touched down on the far side of the moon (Jan. 3 Beijing time, Jan. 2 US), and it's got some living things on board.

A small "tin" in the lander contains seeds of potatoes and rockcress (Arabidopsis thaliana, a flowering plant related to cabbage and mustard, as well as a model organism for plant biology), as well as silkworm eggs. The idea, according to a report in The Telegraph earlier this year, is that the plants will support the silkworms with oxygen, and the silkworms will in turn provide the plants with necessary carbon dioxide and nutrients through their waste. The researchers will watch the plants carefully to see whether the plants successfully perform photosynthesis, and grow and bloom in the lunar environment.

NASA's Large UV Optical Infrared Surveyor (LUVOIR) is one of four astrophysics missions that could be selected to launch in the mid-2030s.
Credit: NASA
SEATTLE — NASA still hasn't launched its new James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), a successor to the beloved and aging Hubble Space Telescope. But the agency is already preparing for an even bigger and better space observatory to eventually replace JWST.

Four teams of NASA scientists are getting ready to submit their proposals for future flagship-class astrophysics missions — the most expensive of all NASA's science missions. Of the four, only one mission concept will be selected to launch in the mid-2030s.

The four mission-concept studies were detailed here at the 233rd meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) this week (Jan. 6-10), even though many of the NASA scientists were furloughed due to the government shutdown and unable to attend the conference.

Each of the proposed missions is a space telescope designed to study things like stars, galaxies, black holes, alien planets and objects within Earth's solar system. The telescopes would probe the mysteries of the universe by detecting different wavelengths of light, from low-energy infrared to high-energy ultraviolet and X-ray radiation.

NASA hasn't put prices on the missions just yet, but flagship-class missions typically cost over $1 billion. However, JWST is expected to cost NASA upward of $10 billion after years of delays and cost overruns.

RegularNewcomer

That article isn't entirely clear on this being a test vehicle just for doing landings. It's never going to fly over a few 100 meters. It's not made of the same cold formed steel as the final version. Impressive how quickly they put it together though.

The first orbital prototype is six months away. The booster it need's to go into orbit is another six months after that. They don't need that to test reentry heating though. They could fly a really steep/fast suborbital profile.

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